Everyone stretched out, sat down. Sé lay down entirely, pulled out his sketch pad and started drawing the cloud formations overhead for a project he had in mind. Evelyn took out a small, filthy-smelling, brown cigarillo and lit it up defiantly.
‘Way to totally like ruin the moment,’ said Arnold, coughing dramatically.
‘Or massively improve it,’ said Evelyn. ‘I always stand upwind of you, so now may I suggest you do the same?’
Connie stared at the river, her gaze following two lazy terns circling overhead. It was as difficult to imagine the pounding, roaring energy, noise, traffic and people of London – only a hundred kilometres away, nothing in spatial terms, not really – as it was to imagine a dying sun spurting out its final embers across a distant star, confusing the tiny signals only a rudimentary Earth device could pick up…
‘It’s all perspective, isn’t it?’ said a low voice, echoing her thoughts. She turned, startled. Luke was standing there.
‘From up here, everything looks far, even when it isn’t. It just depends where you’re standing.’
Suddenly Connie was conscious that Luke was standing very close to her. He wasn’t touching her, but he was uncomfortably close; she could hear his breathing, smell a light smell she couldn’t identify but later struck her as something not unlike salt water. His long, thick eyelashes were casting shadows on his pale cheek. She blinked. His eyes really were incredibly large. She had noticed – she didn’t know if the others had – how bad his eyesight really was. He got by on familiar routes and, she had also noticed, he had taken to checking out where she was in the room by her hair.
‘Luke!’ shouted Evelyn. ‘Personal space.’
‘Oh lord,’ said Luke, moving back a step and wobbling slightly. Connie put out a hand to stop him from falling, but he avoided it and successfully performed an awkward back-hopping manoeuvre until he’d stopped himself. ‘Sorry. Evelyn keeps telling me off for it.’
‘That’s all right. I… I don’t mind,’ said Connie, almost before she realised what she was saying. Then she flushed a dark red, her cheeks growing hot. I’ve been trapped in that room too long, she thought to herself. I’m going nuts. Too much time enclosed and indoors. Too long without… I mean, not that… I mean, Luke was pretty… too pretty, she told herself. Too pretty for a boy. Although his strong shoulders under that jacket… and his long, elegant fingers…
‘THAT is BEAUTIFUL!’ shouted Arnold suddenly, and she turned towards him, conscious of being pleased at the distraction.
‘That is the most BEAUTIFUL thing I have EVER SEEN.’
Everyone followed where he was pointing. Just down the hill on the other side, slightly hidden from view along the path, was a little sign for a pub.
They sat outside, the sun warm on their backs, pints all round, enjoying the odd freedom; not, for once, panicking and worrying about the work they had done and not done; about who was watching them. They were just a group of colleagues, friends almost, sitting like normal people, having a pint in a pub, just like normal people did on Fridays or whatever day it was (actually it was a Wednesday, but none of them had noticed a weekend for three weeks now).
The unexpected loveliness of the afternoon, and the unexpectedly strong local cider, acted on all of them quickly, and soon the noise levels round the table rose with a great deal of banter based around which of them was the biggest loser: Sé getting upset at the others ridiculing his attempt to make fractals out of empty crisp packets; a very awkward interlude when Ranjit jumped up and showed them his immaculately worked out and extremely sexually explicit dance routine when ‘Blurred Lines’ came on the radio; a fight between Evelyn and Arnold on a subject nobody could remember afterwards but was either the oppressive nature of the Catholic church or the correct way to cook a chicken ballotine.
For the most part, Connie was happy to sit, soaking up the atmosphere, laughing at the stupid jokes, enjoying the fresh air and the sunset as the pub filled up with farmers and local people, not the students they were used to; and the garden, with its wooden trestle tables and many dogs, turned on its fairy lights, and moths fluttered around them, and the scent of meadow grass mingled with pear cider and Evelyn’s filthy little black cigarettes mixed and descended with the dew, and the evening took on a slightly hazy feel of laughter and noise and all of them together.
Later – much later – Connie was wondering about how exactly they were all going to stagger their way home, particularly when there seemed to be twice as many sheep in the fields than before – she found this thought highly amusing and started to giggle. When she came back from the loos she noticed that Luke was standing on the table, shouting about star signals.
She looked around. He was obviously talking too loudly. The other tables were pretending not to hear him, but she still had the idea that he shouldn’t be speaking aloud about their project. They shouldn’t mention it outside the bunker at all. Surely that was the deal? Even through her slightly befugged state, this seemed very wrong.
‘Come down,’ she hissed urgently, threading her way through the other tables. ‘Luke! Get down from there!’
Luke frowned at her.
‘I’m not “up” anywhere.’
‘You’re “up” on the table.’
He glanced at it.
‘This is “up” relatively speaking. It’s actually nothing at all in real terms.’
‘Well, can you get down off nothing then, please.’
‘All I’m saying is…’
‘All you’re saying is something you can say very quietly, in private in the bunker,’ said Connie. The others were watching both of them, eyes fixed on one another.
‘We don’t need a bunker,’ said Luke. ‘That’s the point. We’ve all looked at it properly. Except for you, Sé. Your investigation into the hierarchical structures of the sequence is flawed. You’re not considering the fact that we can apply any semantic interpretation to derive meaning: we’re looking for a natural interpretation, and yours isn’t it. Just because a structure is delightful doesn’t mean you can jam the data in.’
‘That’s absolute…’ Sé thought for a moment and stared into his glass. ‘Oh yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Doesn’t make any difference,’ said Luke loftily. ‘You could substitute a small rhesus monkey for the 120-cell for all the usefulness you’ll add to the work.’
‘Oh well, thanks for that,’ said the normally unflappable Sé.
‘No, listen,’ said Luke, waving his long hands about in agitation. Evelyn tugged his jacket so he stepped down off the table, but he stayed standing up. Several of the nearby tables were looking straight at the madman. Connie found herself wishing they’d get thrown out, but she couldn’t see any staff nearby.
‘Listen to me!’ said Luke. ‘It’s been fun… um, well, I’m not sure what fun is, but I think we should say, “It’s been fun,” and anyway. We can see. These mean nothing. They are futile streams of nothing, probably the last gasps of a dying supernova. We need to tell them, “Take your ridiculously expensive satellite telescopes and point them somewhere else. You’re doing nobody any good and wasting all your money and stuff.” And then we can go back to doing whatever we like to do instead of trying to solve stupid Sudoku puzzles and calling it a job. I say we tell them tomorrow.’
‘Do you reckon a month is enough, bud?’ said Arnold, frowning.
‘You could spend a hundred years on this,’ said Luke. ‘You’d get nowhere. It’s nothing. Nothing. And it’s wasting our time.’
Evelyn nodded.’I wouldn’t mind putting a book together with the rest of my fellowship year.’
‘I want to visit home,’ said Sé.
‘I’m getting married!’ said Ranjit happily.
‘I’d be delighted to fuck off that professor guy,’ said Arnold.
Luke looked at Connie. She stared straight back at him.
‘No!’ she said.
‘What?’
‘No! I’m no
t done!’
‘Not done doing what? Long division?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Connie, conscious of her tongue feeling thick in her mouth. ‘I’ll know it when I find it.’
‘You’ll never find it.’
‘You seem very sure of that. Don’t you want me to find it?’
They locked gazes for a long time. Luke dropped his first.
Eventually Arnold stood up.
‘Ach, Connie’s probably right,’ he said. ‘Can’t give up on sucking the government teat quite yet.’
Evelyn sighed. ‘Killjoy.’
‘I’m quite liking it,’ said Ranjit.
Connie looked at Luke’s face. For someone so mild-mannered, he didn’t look like a man who had just lost a work argument. Suddenly, he looked pale, and completely and utterly heartbroken.
Arnold didn’t notice, and heaved his hefty bulk off the bench.
‘Right, I’m gonna turn in. I know we’re in Britain and all that, but I don’t see why I should have to drink till I’m unconscious just because it’s local.’
The others muttered agreement and everyone gradually stood up, moving slightly unsteadily up to the crest, over the hill and back down to the lights of town, all now on and shining in a comforting fashion.
Only Luke stayed where he was, still standing behind a sea of empty glasses, the stricken look still on his face. Connie stayed behind for a second, feeling bad to have upset him so much.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just… I just don’t feel I’m done yet. I feel there is something in it. Something connecting it. Something just out of reach that I can’t see. I know it sounds crazy. Call it my Spidey sense.’
Luke looked confused, then, once again, completely crestfallen.
‘I understand,’ he said. Connie couldn’t understand why he was so miserable about it. It was only a job, after all. A job they were being contracted to do.
She offered him her arm jauntily to walk down the hill with, but he looked at it as if he had no idea what to do with it, so she took it back, embarrassed with her forwardness for the second time that evening. Remember Sé, she told herself. Don’t make a total idiot of yourself. At least Sé was interested at the time. Stop it.
She set off down the path.
‘I’ll… I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said when he made no move to follow her. Instead, he was gazing into the night sky, where the stars had just started popping out. He nodded.
‘I’ll stay a while,’ he said.
They got back to the college, full of bonhomie, although Connie was still worried about Luke. So she didn’t notice as the others said their goodnights and went to their own sets that she was left alone in the corridor with Sé.
‘Goodnight,’ she said pleasantly, feeling in her bag. Sé looked uncomfortable.
‘Actually,’ he said. ‘Actually.’
He moved a little closer.
‘I wondered if, maybe… you might like a nightcap or a coffee or something.’
Connie looked up at his handsome face, completely taken by surprise. Their relationship had been – the occasional ribbing from the others aside – entirely professional since their paths had crossed again and she had ceased to think of him as anything other than a quiet, serious colleague.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh, Sé, I…’
His high-cheekboned face was a very awkward mix of nerves and hope. She cast her eyes down.
‘I think with us working so much together… it would just get complicated…’
He gave a short nod.
‘Plus, you like that other guy.’
‘What other guy?’ said Connie, colouring.
‘What other guy?’ mimicked Sé crossly. ‘Arnold? Uh, no. That moony-looking guy with the big cow eyes? You’re always looking at him.’
‘I’m not always looking at him!’ said Connie. ‘I’m always looking at nineteen thousand pages of senseless printout, like everybody else.’
‘Which is why you need to do something to take your mind off it.’
Connie had a quick flashback to Sé’s long, almost hairless, beautiful, brown-skinned body but shook her head.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Because of him?’
‘Because of all sorts of things,’ she said. Sé blinked slowly, his face slowly closing up.
‘Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am.’
‘Thank you,’ said Connie. He waved an arm at her and sauntered off down the corridor, leaving her standing alone, feeling very peculiar.
Chapter Five
It almost certainly had a lot to do with the cider – and Sé’s very awkward proposal – but Connie slept badly. She tossed and turned under the covers, finding the night stuffy, the curtains of the four-poster oppressive. She couldn’t get a comfortable spot, feeling like she was in a ship on the sea, tipping in and out of an uncomfortable half-sleep, thirsty, that image of Luke’s devastated face coming back to her again and again, even though it was not in the least clear why he was so upset.
Finally, at just before four, she gave up. The ancient oak floorboards creaked under her feet, which were still unaccustomed to such luxury, and she wobbled over to the little kitchen where she drank a glass of water so fast she forgot to turn off the tap. The water pounded down in the sink and, a little befuddled, Connie watched it for a while, blinking. Then she leaned over and turned it off.
She put on the kettle and made herself a cup of tea, but didn’t put any lights on. The moon was shining brightly through the windows, and she didn’t think her eyes were up to it. Instead she took the tea, pulled a blanket off the sofa and wrapped it round herself, and headed to the large window.
Sure enough, although she didn’t quite have a little balcony like Evelyn, she did have a tiny bit of space between the window and the crenellations; just about enough to squeeze herself out, and up and over the roof. She did so now, gazing out over the rooftops of the ancient buildings, and beyond, to the gentle rolling hills, the stars blazing away overhead. She fancied she saw someone walk up one of the hills, but she couldn’t have done; nobody would be out at this time of night.
Instead, she drank more of her hot tea and gazed out at the skyline, half asleep, half awake, wondering when the fingers of dawn would arrive. Somehow it seemed at this time that they never would; that they would be dark for ever, nothing but the faint light of distant stars to guide them; nothing but eternal nightfall.
She must have fallen asleep properly then, partly because when she awoke, the stars were fading, and, more pressingly, she found herself falling – lurching to one side. The shock woke her instantly and she cried out, grabbing onto a crenellation, convinced in her dream traces that she was falling overboard from a boat.
When Connie realised she was in no danger of falling off the room but had merely moved in her sleep, she was cross with herself, but still shaken up. There was no boat, no sea, no…
Connie froze.
Dawn was just beginning; straight ahead, she was facing the east, and the first streaking of pinks, purples and yellows were starting to shoot out. But mostly the sky was still dark, and the gently undulating hills looked more like…
Connie shot up, still in her pyjamas, pulled on a jumper and ran to the bunker. She didn’t realise she was in bare feet until she was nearly there.
She didn’t expect anyone to be around, but a security guard – not like the normal, heavy chaps she generally saw there, but a young, smart man with a very short haircut – was awake and alert, ticked off her name and let her through the door.
Connie went straight to the piles of paper, grabbed a stack, stole a big fresh whiteboard pen off Sé’s desk (Arnold’s were always running out; Sé’s desk was always immaculate and his stationery pristine) and started on the far left of the room, the whiteboard nearest the door. Pulling her hair off her face with a rubber band, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and began.
Four hours later, the others crawled in, in various degrees of messi
ness: Arnold with bags under his eyes, Ranjit yawning, Evelyn looking pristine as always. Luke was nowhere to be seen.
‘Whoa,’ said Arnold, pushing open the door with the hand which wasn’t holding his enormo-cup into which he religiously emptied Evelyn’s special coffee at breakfast every morning.
Connie didn’t even look round. Every single centimetre of every single whiteboard was covered top to toe with pen. She was stretching up to the top of one with a set square, almost out of breath. The pen was nearly run out.
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